GREEN groups have condemned the government’s decision to back the “astronomically expensive” Sizewell C nuclear plant.

Business Secretary Grant Shapps, who visited the site in Suffolk on Tuesday, has pledged to invest £700 million of public funding in the power plant, adding the site would generate 10,000 new jobs.  

The plant is a joint endeavour with French energy giant EDF and is expected to take a decade to build at the cost of between £20-£30 billion.

Describing the deal as historic, Mr Shapps said the development of Sizewell C was crucial to providing “British energy for British homes,” amid record high global gas prices. 

He added that ministers were also committed to developing more nuclear plants as part of a “Great British Nuclear” programme.

However Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay disputed the government’s claims, saying large reactors are “far too slow to help solve our climate crisis and way too expensive to address sky-high energy bills.”

Greenpeace UK also criticised the project, saying the launch of Great British Nuclear was “clearly ironic as new nuclear is neither great nor British.”

“Projects have been plagued by massive delays and ballooning costs while the government is seeking to have Sizewell C — a French-designed and built reactor — funded by foreign investment funds,” said the climate group’s policy director Doug Parr. 

The group said renewable energy would be cheaper, cleaner and faster to produce. Mr Parr added: “Why are ministers still obsessing about astronomically expensive, delay-plagued nuclear plants when we have much better options available?”

Energy workers’ union GMB national officer Charlotte Brumpton-Childs welcomed the plans, describing Tuesday’s announcement as a “long overdue step in the right direction.” 

"Without nuclear, there can be no net zero,” she said.